Too late for this season? Budget for family of 4?

[OrangeSunset]

I've got a big birthday coming up, and gone back to work, so thinking of blowing caution to the wind and booking sking.

Is it too late to get a reasonable holiday this year? Family of 4, DC have never skied.

How does it work? I remember adults need ski hire, lessons, passes. What about the DC? Who's a good company to go with - do some include lessons etc?

Check out Family Ski, I actually worked a season with them and they were ace for families and those who haven't skied before, they also have deals on at their different resorts!
Wish I was going, you'll have an ace time!

On a mid range budget Espirit and Mark Warner are good - there should still be availability if you're not fussy about a particular resort.

Both espirit and MW have their own childcare and organise lessons along with kit hire as necessary.

How old are DC?

DC are 8 and 6. What would be mid-range? Like £3k?

Probably looking more like 4K.

We recently booked a ten day chalet stay in France for 5 (3DC) pretty much AI (full board, daily lessons for DC, flights and transfers + equipment hire for all) for just under 7.

There were plenty of 6 night options around the £800pp option (although prices advertised tend to be exclusive of lessons/hire). France tends to be slightly pricier so if you're not fussy about destination look st some of the other European resorts.

We've done packages and organised it ourselves over the years. IMO it's quite hard to beat the package hol prices for Europe and with kids and without experience the convenience is great.

I've just had a look at the Fanily Ski website and depending on when you wanted to go they have a great deal for chalets in January £399pp, they also organise children's lessons etc if check them out, one of the resorts (Ardent) is only 2hrs from Geneva and they organise transfers etc!

Choose carefully though there is currently no snow in a lot of places!

We've booked Feb half term and family of four is working out £2800 all in and there's still availability

Ryanair flights to Barcelona £600
Apartment through friends but loads on booking.com all similar price of £1k
Transfers -£200
Ski passes inc lunch, ski hire and lessons £1000

Booked all separate and go on the 12th Feb. Bargain - I'll never book a package again!

Doesn't include any extra childcare (just 3hours in lessons) but we wouldn't use that anyway as we like to ski together in the afternoon.

Should say that's for Andorra

We never do package deals for skiing and tend to go to Scandinavia. Can get family of 4 for about £3000 plus food. That includes private lessons for children, lift passes, flights, short transfer, accommodation and ski hire.

Where do you go in Scandinavia? I'm looking for ideas for 2018. I've booked it all independently last two years to France as we get local direct flights to Geneva but always looking for new places . Ours costs £3k all in but not in school hols for 2A&2K. Ski school costs loads be great in couple yrs when we don't need it!

The problem with Scandinavia is that it really bloody cold.

We're going in February and I love the location but we're in France at the mo and the temp is so much more appealing

I've just been looking at Levi but it seems to be really expensive just for the flights I can't see how I could get there from SW England cheaply?

Try looking at Bulgaria. Really good value for money. Crystal do packages, but you could try independent as well, which could save you £1000+ (though flights will be your problem now if you go for that option). Pamporovo is excellent for beginners with good schools for the kids - the drawback is the transit time from the airport to resort (ca 4 hours from sofia, 2 from Plovdiv if you can get a flight to there). We did it for our first time with the kids a few years ago and haven't looked back.

Oh, meant to add - they have snow in Bulgaria at the moment.

We fly From Heathrow to Helsinki and then on to Kittila. We usually try and book 8 - 10 months in advance and flights cost about £1000-£1200 for all of us. Book an apartment in Levi which is also about £1000 for a week. We get 2 free ski passes with apartment and then just buy childrens. They didn't need one until 7 yrs old. Ski hire about £300ish and then just lessons and food. Loads of other things to do as well. www.levi.fi has lots of info. We live in SW as well. May not be the best flights available by now I guess. Temperature is around 0 at Easter so just fine for skiing.

Is it not really expensive once there though jo? We took the kids to Saariselka - another ski resort in Finland- and it was £10 for beer, glass of wine etc. Even simple lunch of pizza cost us £100!